EMS Students Excel At Regional Mathleague Competition

On March 14, The Elisabeth Morrow School hosted a Mathleague divisional contest which featured 36 teams in grades 3 to 6, representing eight schools:  Golda Och Academy, Rutgers Prep, Solomon Schechter of Bergen County, Sacred Heart School, Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart, Oakland Public Schools, and The Ridgewood Avenue School.  In all 144 students competed, at their respective grade levels, in a four-part competition featuring number sense, sprint round, target round and team round challenges.  

The Elisabeth Morrow School students dominated the competition with three first-place team finishes (for grades 3, 4, and 6) and two individual champions, Peter Staphos (Old Tappen, NJ) in the fourth grade and Austin Kwak (Fort Lee, NJ) in the sixth grade.  Overall, Austin finished with the highest score for all competitors in the competition.

"Our school did exceptionally well," said Elisabeth Morrow Math Department Chairperson, Carol Toth. "This competition gave us a chance to see just how well our students could do against other schools. And, in fact, in another divisional contest that took place on the same day at another location, we scored better than their top scoring teams at most levels."  

The first place teams from this competition will move on to the state playoffs later this spring.

Results

3rd Grade:  First Place Team.  Individual EMS results:  Rohan Buluswar (2nd), James Grant (3rd), Andrew Hyde (8th), Purvi Jonnalagadda (10th)

4th Grade:  First Place Team (John Mauro, Peter Staphos, Shelby Kim, Ronit Malde), Second Place Team (Keeka Takehana, Annabelle Xing, Malachy Guzman, Aidan Kim).  Individual EMS Results:  Peter Staphos (1st), John Mauro (2nd), Shelby Kim (4th), Aidan Kim (5th), Ronit Malde (6th), Keeka Takehana (7th), Malachy Guzman (9th)

5th Grade:  Second Place Team (Cole Knie, Cameron Woo, Reha Mathur, Oren Berkowitz), 6th Place Team (Zachary Brooks, Margo Costigan, Sangmin Lee, Kris Pursiainen).  Individual EMS Results:  Cameron Woo (3rd), Reha Mathur (4th), Oren Berkowitz (6th), Cole Knie (9th)

6th Grade:  1st Place Team (Austin Kwak, Tanvi Jonnalagadda, Allison DeRose, Shant Amerkanian), 2nd Place Team (Harry Moon, Alex Nelson, Maggie Sheridan, James Wedgbury).  Individual EMS Results:  Austin Kwak (1st), Tanvi Jonnalagadda (2nd), Allison DeRose (3rd), Shant Amerkanian (4th), Harry Moon (6th)

Competition Aggregate (highest scores for the entire competition):

1st Austin Kwak

2nd Tanvi Jonnalagadda

3rd Allison DeRose

5th Peter Staphos

7th Shant Amerkanian

8th Cameron Woo

10th Reha Mathur

Full Results at Mathleague.org

Our Minecraft Curriculum Featured at Annual NAIS Conference

by Aaron Cooper

Head of School

Last week, a contingent from The Elisabeth Morrow School traveled to Philadelphia for the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Annual Conference; a gathering of more than 5,000 educators from around the country. 

EMS Technology teacher Marianne Malmstrom and I were honored to be invited, along with seventeen other schools, to present specific educational innovations in a session called Speed Innovating.  Ms. Malmstrom and I offered a session titled Targeting the "Six C's" for the 21st Century Through the New Frontier of Minecraft, which detailed the "gaming" curriculum of our technology department. 

Some within our community are familiar with our Tech department's work with Minecraft.  If you are not, or are interested in taking a closer look, please consult the following links:

•  The information on our session at NAIS

•  This wiki space maintained to document the students’ work

•  Or, this article from the 2012 Appletree magazine.

NAIS President Pat Bassett referred to the session in his general remarks to the entire conference by saying that, "if [attendees] did not have the chance to see the Speed Innovation session, [they] need to do so next year, as it featured details of what education can and should be."  Mr. Bassett also had the chance to listen directly to our presentation and was quite impressed with the work going on at Elisabeth Morrow.  This is certainly high praise coming from an individual so knowledgeable about the independent school world. 

Ms. Malmstrom and the technology team have developed this program over the past five years and have worked tirelessly to tweak the curriculum and support the students’ work.  It is this sort of dedication and drive that we all appreciate and is a hallmark of our entire Elisabeth Morrow faculty.  

Ginny Smith Presents "Brain Exercises" at State Conference

EMS Physical Education Teacher Ginny Smith recently presented at the NJAHPERD* Lake Conference in Hardwick, New Jersey.  Entitled Brain Exercises, Mrs. Smith discussed how and why aerobic exercise and "cross-lateral movement challenges" stimulate brain function.  Neuroscience is revealing that exercise can elevate neurotransmitter levels in the brain, which in turn, may optimize focus and retention in children.  For this reason, Mrs. Smith advocates a regular "diet" of movement in the academic day. Her presentation also featured the demonstration of activities and exercises teachers may utilize in either a gym or classroom setting. 

* NJAHPERD: New Jersey Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance

Marianne Malmstrom Featured Guest On "It Takes A Guild: A Guild Of Educators

Most of what we get at school is consumption and spoon fed – "here's the information" and "master this information," then "take the test," "now we can move on" – but, the reality is that we live in a world that is changing so quickly that the best skill you can have, possibly, is your ability to adapt and to learn new things on the fly. ...With Minecraft, you have to figure it out, you have to read about it yourself, you have to ask a friend, you have to experiment until you learn. ...So the best we can do is to prepare students to be really successful learners and problem solvers, to be creative and learn to collaborate, and that is what I think these games do the best.

  ~Marianne Malmstrom

EMS Technology Teacher Marianne Malmstrom was recently the featured speaker on It Takes A Guild: A Guild of Educators, an "educator centric webinar series offered" by Gamers Advancing Meaningful Education or G.A.M.E.  In the webinar interview, Ms. Malmstrom talks about how " the EMS Tech team successfully guided the integration of the popular game Minecraft into the activities and curriculum of most of the grades at The Elisabeth Morrow School" (webinar synopsis of episode 2).

You can also check out an abridged reprise of her Appletree Magazine article Game to Learn on the recently launched A Platform For Good, "a project of the Family Online Safety Institute designed to help parents, teachers and teens to connect, share and do good online."  A featured blogger for this site, this article will be the start of many other articles to follow for Ms. Malmstrom.

Elisabeth Morrow Students Take First Place Team Trophies in Every Grade Level at Inaugural Math Contest.

4th Grade Winning Team:
Reha, Cameron, Oren and Sangmin

by Evan Brown
Director of Communications and Alumni

On Monday April 30, The Elisabeth Morrow School hosted the first-ever, elementary Math League Contest to take place in Northern New Jersey.  The contest, organized by EMS Math Chair Carol Toth for students in grades 3 through 6, was administered by Mathleague.org and are modeled upon the larger MathCounts National Competitions. 

The Elisabeth Morrow Math scholars faired exceptionally well, garnering first-place, all-around trophies in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade, making a clean sweep of all divisions. In addition, the EMS team registered two 1st place individual winners: Peter Staphos (in grade 3) and Dylan Rhee (in grade 5).  As well, Dylan was the highest individual scorer for the entire competition.  Elisabeth Morrow also had the highest overall team score from its all-girl, sixth-grade team:  Stephanie Li, Emily Yu, Kira Trout and Chrissie Anagnos. The team was coached by EMS Math teacher, Sarah Ehatamm.

MathLeague.org competitions consist of several challenges that require a variety of math skills and abilities.  Students are tested through mental-math problems, group problem solving, sprint rounds featuring multiple choice, and targeted rounds that allow for the use of approved calculators.  The competition fielded teams from a number of prominent regional independent schools, including: Princeton Academy, Solomon Schechter, The Wilson School, The Peck School, Far Hills Country Day, Rumson Country Day and The Red Oaks School.  In all Elisabeth Morrow hosted 175 students for the afternoon competition.

John Hunter and World Peace Game

by Aaron Cooper

Assistant Head of School

Click Here to see TED talk

I had the opportunity to attend a talk by John Hunter, 4th grade teacher and TED speaker, while at the National Association of Independent Schools Conference in Seattle.  Mr. Hunter spoke about his World Peace Game, developed over the course of his 30 year career. From his website, the game is described as a "hands-on political simulation that gives players the opportunity to explore the connectedness of the global community through the lens of the economic, social, and environmental crises and the imminent threat of war (1)." From my perspective, this wonderful game establishes high expectations while giving students an opportunity to collaborate, create and solve "real-world" problems, as they work toward "winning."  

Good teachers think alike it seems.  Mr. Hunter's talk made me reflect upon the game-like initiatives we already have in place at EMS.  Ms. Malmstrom's tech curriculum involving MMOG's like Minecraft or Quest Atlantis, and Mr. Penny's City Game come to mind as similar, middle-school examples.  But "immersive" games like these happen across each grade level at our School. Mr. Hunter's World Peace Game (as well as our own games), when you see them in action, are refreshing reminders of what children can achieve when given an engaging and dynamic framework to think critically and collectively.

You don't have to take my word for it though; you can watch Mr. Hunter's TED talk or review his World Peace Game Foundation website if you would like more information.  As well, the game serves as the backdrop for a new movie debuting on PBS this Spring, called World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements.  To watch a trailer of the film, click here.

(1)  http://www.worldpeacegame.org/world-peacegame-foundation/about-the-game